The Islamic Republic of Iran Four Decades On: The 2017/18 Protests Amid a Triple Crisis - Ali Fathollah-Nejad - Brookings ...
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Brookings Doha Center Analysis Paper Number 28, April 2020 The Islamic Republic of Iran Four Decades On: The 2017/18 Protests Amid a Triple Crisis Ali Fathollah-Nejad
The Islamic Republic of Iran Four
Decades On: The 2017/18 Protests
Amid a Triple Crisis
Ali Fathollah-NejadThe Brookings Institution is a nonprofit organization devoted to independent research
and policy solutions. Its mission is to conduct high-quality, independent research and,
based on that research, to provide innovative, practical recommendations for policymakers
and the public. The conclusions and recommendations of any Brookings publication
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its management, or its other scholars.
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Copyright © 2020 Brookings Institution
THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
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BROOKINGS DOHA CENTER
Saha 43, Building 63, West Bay, Doha, Qatar
www.brookings.edu/dohaTable of Contents
I. Executive Summary .................................................................................................1
II. Introduction ..........................................................................................................4
III. The 2017/18 Dey Protests: The Explosion of Contingent
and Structural Grievances ....................................................................................6
IV. The Islamic Republic’s Triple Crisis .....................................................................19
V. Conclusions and Prospects ...................................................................................32
VI. Endnotes ............................................................................................................38Acknowledgements The author extends his gratitude to the internal and anonymous external reviewers of the paper for their helpful comments. He also thanks the Brookings Doha Center (BDC) research and communications departments for their support. Ali Fathollah-Nejad Doha, April 2020
E xec u t i ve S u m m ary
Throughout its tumultuous four decades of rule, the Islamic Republic
has shown remarkable longevity, despite regular predictions of its im-
pending demise. However, the fact that it has largely failed to deliver on
the promises of the 1979 revolution, above all democracy and social jus-
tice, continues to haunt its present and future. Iran’s post-revolutionary
history has been marked not by totalitarian stagnation, but rather by a
constant struggle between state and society over the course the country
should take. In fact, as the 2009 Green Movement and the 2017/18 pro-
tests demonstrate, the century-old struggle of Iranians against tyranny
and for democracy continues unabated.
In November 2019, new protests erupted across Iran, sparked by a surprise
tripling of fuel prices. These protests were, analytically speaking, a continua-
tion of the nationwide protests that took place in 2017/18, known as the Dey
Protests. While the November or Âbân (referring to the Iranian calendar
month) Protests were distinct from the Dey Protests in a number of ways,
some analysts have proposed that both are part of an Iranian version of the
“long-term revolutionary process” that has been underway throughout the
Arab world since 2011.
This paper, which was written with a focus on the Dey Protests, aims to provide
a useful contextualization of recent events and proposes to read the Iranian pro-
tests of the past two years within the context of what I call the Islamic Republic’s
“triple crisis.” It argues that, given the ongoing nature of this crisis, the need for
fundamental domestic change in Iran remains pressing. In fact, over the past
four decades, the Islamic Republic, with its theocratic and semi-republican sys-
tem, has shown itself to be quite immune to meaningful reform, despite multiple
pressures from below.
The first part of the paper looks at the socio-economic and political causes of
those nationwide protests, as reflected in their powerful anti-regime slogans, by
focusing on their contingent drivers. Turning to structural factors, the second
part lays out the Islamic Republic’s triple crisis—socio-economic, political, and
ecological—which poses a veritable threat to regime security. In conclusion, the
11paper addresses what the regime fears most and revisits the lessons to be learned
from the 2009 Green Movement, before highlighting the need for intersectional
alliances in Iran to produce real social transformation.
The paper argues that, within the socio-economic, political, and ecological
triple crisis, the political crisis constitutes the center of gravity. If the political
crisis were solved, through meaningful reform of the governing system, the
resolution of the other two crises—socio-economic and ecological—would
be facilitated, while not guaranteed. Overall, this triple crisis, which is likely
to prevail as its generating factors will probably remain unaltered or worsen,
has heralded a new era in the history of the Islamic Republic, marked by
turmoil and potential instability.
In order to bring about real transformation in Iran, it would be necessary to
form an organized intersectional alliance. Such an alliance would need to bring
together the social bases and main demands of the Green Movement (the middle
class, calling for political liberalization) and the Dey Protests (the lower classes,
calling for social justice). In this way, it would encompass all the constituent so-
cial movements of modern Iran, including the workers’, students’, and women’s
movements, enabling them to coalesce around and collectively forward a social,
economic, and political agenda. For such an alliance to take shape, a “reform of
reformism” would be an important precondition, which would then allow it to
reach out programmatically and practically to the lower classes in order to in-
clude their grievances and interests.
Given the magnitude of Iran’s triple crisis and the absence of meaningful
policies to address it, there is little indication that Iran will be able to solve
any one of the crises. As Iranian society finds itself trapped between a pre-
carious present and uncertain future, a number of scenarios could play out,
including a militarized Islamic Republic, de facto led by the Islamic Revo-
lutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Yet, even such a scenario would neither re-
solve Iran’s triple crisis, nor extinguish Iranians’ indomitable desire for social
justice and good governance.
The Islamic Republic of Iran Four Decades On:
2 The 2017/18 Protests Amid a Triple CrisisWhat happens to a dream deferred? / Does it dry up / like a raisin in the sun?
/ Or fester like a sore— / And then run? / Does it stink like rotten meat? / Or
crust and sugar over— / like a syrupy sweet? / Maybe it just sags / like a heavy
load. / Or does it explode?
—“Harlem,” Langston Hughes1
N ot e o n Tr a n sl ite ratio n
The Persian transliteration uses French for words that are derived from the
latter (e.g., dictateur, néolibéral, referendum).
33Introduction
As protests swept Iran at the turn of 2018, prominent University of Tehran
politics professor Sadegh Zibakalam suggested in a state radio interview that if
a referendum on the future of the Islamic Republic were held at the time, more
than 70 percent of Iranians would say no—from all walks of life, including the
affluent, academics, and clerics, from urban and rural areas alike.2 One year
later, facing intensely challenging domestic and international environments,
the Islamic Republic of Iran marked its 40th anniversary. Throughout its tu-
multuous four decades of rule, the Islamic Republic has shown remarkable
longevity, despite regular predictions of its impending demise. However, the
fact that it has largely failed to deliver on the promises of the 1979 revolu-
tion, above all democracy and social justice, continues to haunt its present and
future.3 Iran’s post-revolutionary history has been marked not by totalitarian
stagnation, but rather by a constant struggle between state and society over
the course the country should take. In fact, as the 2009 Green Movement and
the 2017/18 protests demonstrate, the century-old struggle of Iranians against
tyranny and for democracy continues unabated.4
In November 2019, new protests erupted across Iran, sparked by a surprise tri-
pling of fuel prices. These protests were, analytically speaking, a continuation of
the nationwide protests that took place in 2017/18, known as the Dey Protests.5
Despite similarities in terms of social bases and demands, the November or Âbân
(referring to the Iranian calendar month) Protests were distinct from the Dey
Protests in a number of ways: (1) there was an almost five-fold increase in the
number of protesters (200,000 compared to 42,000, according to interior min-
istry figures), making the Âbân Protests the largest anti-regime demonstration
since the 1979 revolution; (2) people’s resolve was much more ferocious and they
expressed their anger more openly; and (3) the state response was unprecedented,
with a bloody crackdown resulting in the deaths of up to 1,500 protesters (plus
at least 2,000 wounded and 7,000 arrested). The state crackdown was carried
out during a near-total internet shutdown and thus hidden from national and
international scrutiny. The nature of the regime’s unprecedented response also
affected the middle class and the economy much more than the Dey Protests did.
The Islamic Republic of Iran Four Decades On:
4 The 2017/18 Protests Amid a Triple CrisisAs such, the Âbân Protests marked a watershed moment, whose effects are still
being felt today.6 Some analysts have proposed that the Dey and Âbân Protests
are part of an Iranian version of the “long-term revolutionary process” that has
been underway throughout the Arab world since 2011.7 While this paper was
written with a focus on the Dey Protests and concluded before the outbreak of
the more recent Âbân Protests, it hopefully will provide a useful contextualiza-
tion of recent events and offer relevant insights, as it proposes to read the Iranian
protests of the past two years within the context of what I call the Islamic Re-
public’s “triple crisis.”
Sociologist Misagh Parsa has stressed that the Islamic Republic’s rulers are pre-
sented with two broad options: (1) to fulfill popular demands and promises dat-
ing back to the 1979 revolution by implementing fundamental changes, includ-
ing relinquishing their privileges, democratizing the polity, and granting civil
and political liberties or (2) to retain their exclusive privileges and turn toward
repression, thereby radicalizing the public and the opposition and paving the
way for the rise of more radical democratization movements.8 Parsa also stated
in his 2016 book that the Islamic Republic’s contradictions had “generated irrec-
oncilable conflicts and set the stage for protests and clashes that … [had] yet to
reach a climax.”9 This paper argues that, given the Islamic Republic’s acute triple
crisis, the need for fundamental domestic change remains pressing.10
In fact, over the past four decades, the Islamic Republic, with its theocratic and
semi-republican system, has shown itself to be quite immune to meaningful re-
form, despite multiple pressures from below. This analysis paper discusses the
Islamic Republic’s acute internal crises, which reached a climax with the 2017/18
protests. The first part of the paper looks at the socio-economic and political
causes of those nationwide protests, as reflected in their powerful anti-regime
slogans, by focusing on their contingent drivers. Turning to structural factors,
the second part lays out the Islamic Republic’s triple crisis—socio-economic,
political, and ecological—which poses a veritable threat to regime security. In
conclusion, the paper addresses what the regime fears most and revisits the les-
sons to be learned from the 2009 Green Movement, before highlighting the need
for intersectional alliances in Iran to produce real social transformation.
55The 2017/18 Dey Protests:
The Explosion of Contingent
and Structural Grievances
Nationwide leaderless protests shook Iran from December 28, 2017 through
January 3, 2018 (or during Dey 1396, according to the Iranian calendar).11 Ini-
tially, protests deplored economic hardship, government corruption, and high
unemployment, but they soon embraced political slogans against the regime.12
This wave of protests, henceforth referred to as the Dey Protests, has been novel
in two respects: (1) it encompassed an unprecedented geographical range, in-
cluding 70–100 cities and provincial towns across the country, and (2) the slo-
gans chanted were much more radical compared to previous protests, such as the
2009 Green Movement.13
Over ten days, tens of thousands of Iranians—mainly economically dispossessed
youth and members of the lower-middle class, but also students and pensioners—
took to the squares of mostly small cities to voice their anger and frustration. This
“angry class” has been described as the “middle-class poor”: an urban precariat with
middle-class qualifications and aspirations that remains socio-economically de-
prived.14 The lower and working class Iranians who protested have conventionally
been understood to be an integral part of the regime’s social base, or at least loyal
to it, due to welfare-state provisions and their alleged religious piety.15 However,
during the Dey Protests, for instance, 60 Friday prayer offices were attacked, ac-
cording to the Friday prayer imam of the city of Hamedan; this is notable because
the Friday prayer imam in every city represents the supreme leader.16
Following staged pro-regime demonstrations on January 3, 2018, the authorities
announced the end of the Dey Protests. The Fars news agency, which is affiliated
with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), described the January
3 rallies as “the revolutionary outburst of Iranian people against lawbreakers.”17
On the same day, then-commander of the IRGC, Mohammad Ali Jafari, said he
had deployed forces to three provinces (Isfahan, Lorestan, and Hamedan), while
proclaiming the end of what he called the “fetneh,” or the sedition, of 1396
(referring to the Iranian year).18 In 2009, “fetneh 1388” was the term used by
conservatives and hardliners in their attacks against the Green Movement.
The Dey Protests eventually died down as a result of two main factors: (1) repres-
sion by the coercive apparatus of the regime, which classified the upheaval at the
The Islamic Republic of Iran Four Decades On:
6 The 2017/18 Protests Amid a Triple Crisishighest security threat level and even dispatched IRGC forces and (2) the lack
of active involvement by other parts of the middle class, due to reasons includ-
ing fear of reprisal or destabilization, as well as class resentment.19 Concerns over
destabilizing the country and plunging it into chaos were actively invoked by the
regime, which deployed scaremongering tactics, such as putting up billboards
on highways warning Iranians that the continuation of protests might turn the
country into “another Syria.”
The Dey Protests were interpreted in various ways. On one side of the spec-
trum, mainstream commentators, many of whom supported President Hassan
Rouhani, regarded the protests as merely a wake-up call for the administration
to improve its economic performance.20 On the other side, they were read in
more radical terms. According to Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, the
protests ushered in the final chapter of the Islamic Republic: “I am convinced
that these protests are the beginning of the end of the Islamic Republic. We are
dealing with a process. But the demise of the regime has started, even if it may
take years.”21 In this vein, others argued that, with the Dey upheaval and ongoing
protests, Iran had entered a “revolutionary phase.”22
The rebellion’s immediate trigger was a protest on December 28, 2017 staged by
Rouhani’s ultra-conservative opponents in Iran’s second-biggest city, Mashhad,
which used rising food prices to attack the administration’s economic perfor-
mance. Those initiating the Mashhad protest were allies of Rouhani’s 2017 presi-
dential opponent Ebrahim Raisi, who had been appointed by Supreme Leader
Ali Khamenei as chairman of the Âstân Qods Razavi, a clerical-commercial
complex located in the northeastern Razavi Khorasan province and Iran’s largest
“bonyâd” or para-statal religious foundation. The foundation, which administers
the donations made to the Imam Reza shrine complex in Mashhad (the world’s
second largest Muslim pilgrimage destination after Mecca), is by far the larg-
est landowner in the province and controls the trade tied to the large Mashhad
gas reservoirs.23 The Mashhad protest, however, quickly spiraled out of control,
igniting the entire country with a combination of social justice and anti-regime
slogans. This illustrated how the ultra-conservative instigators behind the Mash-
had protest underestimated popular anger toward the entirety of the regime—as
one senior journalist said, it “boomeranged” back on them.24
According to a 27-year-old protester from the northern city of Rasht, the egg
price hike was only the spark:
I want my rights as a woman, I want respect. I want to decide myself whether
to wear the hijab or not. I want to travel, also outside of Iran, without the
permission of my father or brother. They accompany me [to the protests];
77they, too, have the same demands. At the end of the day, it is about human
rights, whether for men or women. We want a better economy, more jobs.
The authorities rob their people. They embezzle funds. We have good oil
resources, but they sell the oil to other countries and take the money for
themselves instead of investing in the country and its people. I don’t know
what the solution would be, perhaps we want a revolution, but I don’t know
whom best to follow.25
The protests’ rapid diffusion was made possible through online social networks,
above all Telegram.26 According to Iran’s interior minister, 42,000 people, 90 per-
cent of whom were under the age of 25, participated, but the real number may
be higher.27 State repression resulted in over 20 people dead (again, merely an
official figure), about 4,000 jailed (almost one in ten protesters, according to the
above-mentioned ministry figure), and an uncounted number injured.28 On Jan-
uary 5, 2018, four special rapporteurs of the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) called upon Tehran to respect the
rights of protesters and to stop blocking internet and messaging services.29
The Dey Protests were driven not only by structural features of the Islamic
Republic, but also by important contingent factors that emerged in the pre-
ceding months. Arguably, a new level of discontent with regime elites had
materialized. This prompted me to speculate in May 2017 that the mix of
socio-economic malaise and lack of avenues for meaningful political partici-
pation—also present in countries affected by the Arab Spring—would create
“the potential for unrest and uprisings,” and, in December 2017, that a recent
wave of protests by workers, pensioners, teachers, and students might “only be
a forerunner of more to come.”30
In fact, the Dey Protests constituted the climax of a high number of protests over
the preceding one and a half years. From March 2016 until the 2017/18 protests,
1,700 social protests took place, according to the Islamic Revolution Devotees
Society [Jamiyat-e Isârgarâ-e Enqelâb-e Eslâmi], a conservative party of which
former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was a founding member.31 Over the
course of 2017, workers, pensioners, teachers, and students staged hundreds of
protests. Labor protests continued due to low and unpaid wages, neoliberal eco-
nomic policies, security force repression of labor organizing, and arbitrary lay-
offs.32 While waves of labor protests had already taken place throughout the Ah-
madinejad presidency (2005–13), President Rouhani’s stance against labor rights
and a decent minimum wage exacerbated the situation.33 Moreover, Student Day
2017 (December 7) witnessed a wave of university protests, with students de-
manding social justice and an end to political tutelage, while highlighting that
the climate for activism had become even worse under Rouhani.34
The Islamic Republic of Iran Four Decades On:
8 The 2017/18 Protests Amid a Triple CrisisExploring protest slogans and demands
Slogans have assumed a prominent role in all waves of protest throughout Ira-
nian history and provide precious insight into protesters’ motivations—volumes
have been published on the subject.35 A look at the slogans chanted during the
2017/18 Dey Protests undermines the previously mentioned reading that Ira-
nians were merely looking for better economic performance from the Rouhani
administration, offering instead a much more radical picture. Despite their het-
erogeneity, the Dey Protests’ slogans can be categorized into three, overlapping
themes: calling for economic justice, critiquing the entire ruling establishment,
and linking Iran’s regional policies to its domestic shortcomings.36
Economic justice and socio-economic frustration
Rouhani, who in August 2013 assumed the presidency pledging to make eco-
nomic and political improvements, failed to solve the crises he inherited. Chief
among his campaign pledges was his promise to improve Iranians’ living condi-
tions via the removal of sanctions following the implementation of the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). However, economic conditions did
not improve for average Iranians. As a result, socio-economic demands—includ-
ing those pushing back against corruption, unemployment, and wealth inequal-
ity—were at the forefront of the Dey Protests. Some of the key protest chants
combined socio-economic and political demands. For instance, echoing argu-
ably the key slogan of the Arab Spring, Iranians shouted “Bread, job, freedom”
[nân, kâr, âzâdi].
The protests were initially sparked by a sudden 50 percent rise in the price of
eggs over the preceding week, following a year during which prices had already
risen by 50 percent. The price hikes have been attributed to a mix of avian in-
fluenza affecting the egg industry and mismanagement in the agricultural sector
that led to a parliamentary impeachment process against the minister of agricul-
ture.37 Protesters estimated the egg price rises as being tremendously higher than
official accounts.38 For poor households, which cannot afford meat products,
eggs are a core food staple. Moreover, according to calculations made by BBC
Persian on the basis of data from the Statistical Center of Iran, the preceding
decade has seen a considerable reduction in the consumption of basic foodstuffs
such as red meat, vegetable oil, and sugar—ranging between 30 percent and 50
percent—with the exception of chicken and eggs. Over the same period, the
prices of the latter two items, taking into account levels of income and over-
all prices, have risen to a smaller extent than those of other food staples, espe-
cially the prices of red meat and bread. Meanwhile, the share of food in overall
household expenditures is higher in economically weak provinces, in many cases
99reaching one-third of their overall budget.39 Hence, the sudden egg price rise,
which sparked protests in Mashhad, was the proverbial straw that broke the cam-
el’s back, having been preceded by a decade of price rises for core food staples.40
Adding to the economic pressures for ordinary Iranians were higher rental costs
and rising real estate prices. For instance, in Tehran, where especially the out-
skirts saw protests, residential real estate prices quadrupled between 2002 and
2014, making housing unaffordable for the population at large.41 Given this rise
in the costs of living, the chant “No to high prices” [Nah beh gerâni] was omni-
present during the initial phase of the protests.
In addition, Rouhani’s mid-December 2017 unveiling of the upcoming annual
budget provoked widespread public anger. The budget proposed cutbacks (includ-
ing a significant reduction of the cash payouts established under his predecessor
Ahmadinejad) and higher fuel prices, while simultaneously calling for large fund-
ing increases for bonyâds. When announcing the budget, Rouhani “admitted that
his government had no say over large parts of the spending and complained about
the lack of transparency over the funds going to the foundations.”42
Some of the major contingent factors behind the Dey Protests were financial
scandals, including bad loans, embezzlement, and bankruptcy in the banking
sector. These factors have destroyed the savings of millions of Iranians. Starting
in the mid-2000s, an estimated 7,000 credit institutions were privatized by then-
President Ahmadinejad, benefitting individuals who were close to the regime.
Then, the working and middle classes, suffering from a 40 percent inflation rate,
were lured in by the private banks, which offered interest rates of around 20
percent—i.e., double the rate offered by regular banks. These financial institu-
tions, which had been approved by the Central Bank of Iran, started to declare
bankruptcy by 2013, due to unprofitable capital investments in the real estate
sector, coupled with corruption and a lack of regulation, accountability, and
transparency. Small towns populated by many dispossessed investors became key
sites of the Dey Protests and many banks were attacked during the upheaval.43
In addition to the factors mentioned above, it is important to note that, while
Iran’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an average rate of 5.1 percent
from 2014 to 2017, economic growth per se cannot be considered a reliable
indicator to measure socio-economic development.44 In fact, Iran’s economic
growth during those years was not inclusive—rather, it was the elite who ben-
efitted from the partial revitalization of trade and investment; one year after
the January 2016 implementation of the JCPOA, when nuclear-related sanc-
tions were lifted, it was reported that around four-fifths of the post-deal com-
mercial contracts had benefitted state and semi-state entities and, above all, the
economic empires of the IRGC and the supreme leader.45 However, given the
The Islamic Republic of Iran Four Decades On:
10 The 2017/18 Protests Amid a Triple CrisisIslamic Republic’s political-economic structures, which only allow the private
sector a marginal role, this lopsided result cannot come as surprise.46
Moreover, under Rouhani, poverty and income inequality continued to increase,
especially in smaller cities, which became hotbeds of the Dey Protests.47 Poverty
rates for urban areas (home to 74 percent of Iran’s population) have risen steadily
since 2012, while rates in rural areas rose sharply during Rouhani’s first year in
office and stayed high.48 However, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani argues that, rather than
poverty, unemployment and unfulfilled economic expectations may have fueled
the Dey Protests.49 There is in fact some evidence that points to socio-economic
frustration as a core driver. After all, despite the Rouhani administration’s prom-
ise that economic dividends from the JCPOA would reach Iranians at large, they
almost exclusively went to regime entities, with the resulting economic growth
not being inclusive.
Following the inflow of oil money—which saw a spike after the conclusion of
the JCPOA—Iran’s income distribution usually gets worse.50 Moreover, income
inequality had increasingly come to public attention prior to the Dey Protests.
On the one hand, a year before the protests, pictures were circulated of home-
less people sleeping in empty graves, shocking the country.51 On the other hand,
the “âqâzâdeh,” or offspring of regime affiliates, were engaged in ostentatious
displays of wealth, which Iranians from all walks of life observed on Tehran’s
streets or through their smartphones, enraging them. According to sociologist
Ahmad Naghibzadeh, such perceptions of Iran’s elite could translate into pub-
lic distrust: “The Islamic Republic loses its greatest support base—meaning the
people. People develop a highly negative view of the elite.”52
Furthermore, in early 2017, Masoud Nili, Rouhani’s economic advisor, com-
plained that the top 10 percent of Iranian earners only paid 3 percent of all in-
come taxes.53 In December 2012, then-President Ahmadinejad claimed that only
300 people controlled 60 percent of the nation’s wealth.54 Such wealth inequal-
ity, as Kamran Matin states, is the result of “more than two decades of illiberal
neo-liberalization, in which state institutions and their rentier appendages have
engaged in a ruthless ‘accumulation by dispossession.’”55
An incisive example demonstrating the above points were the protests that swept
Qom. Often referred to as a “holy city” because it is the Islamic Republic’s cen-
ter for Shiite seminaries, Qom now has over one million inhabitants. In late
December 2017, almost 2,000 people took to the streets, chanting a variety of
slogans, including in favor of Reza Shah—the iron-fisted modernizer who ruled
from 1925 to 1941 and father of the last shah—who is known for having re-
duced the power of the clergy.56 According to Mehdi Faraji, this “unprecedented
1111dissent” in Qom, a city that had been simplistically regarded as a conservative
regime stronghold, reflected long-standing grievances and rising social discon-
tent against “clerical class privilege.” This “profound anger towards the clergy”
by “almost everyone regardless of their political or class affiliations” came about
because the ulema have economic privileges that those “not connected to the
clerical system” do not. In fact, since the Ahmadinejad administration, a com-
prehensive welfare system for clerics and seminarians has developed, including
“free comprehensive health insurance, low-interest loans, high-value gift cards,
housing supplements and well-paid wages to cover their needs, all of which are
unavailable for ordinary people.”57 Since 2005, religious institutions in Qom
have seen drastic increases in their budgets, including the rises proposed by Rou-
hani’s 2018 budget.58
A two-class system has emerged in Qom: on one hand, a clerical welfare state
and, on the other, a neoliberal state for the vast majority that includes privatized
education, deregulated labor laws, suppressed unions, and reduced public spend-
ing. As a result, rising inequality that benefitted those with regime connections
was at the core of the discontent seen in the city. In this sense, the situation in
Qom is not categorically different from that of the rest of the Islamic Republic,
as Faraji explains:
The anger and grievances I witnessed in Qom, on the streets of Iran and aired in
private encounters, were not just about the overall poor economic situation or
high levels of unemployment, but also included a sense that there was a grow-
ing inequality at the personal and societal level between a privileged clerical
class and the rest, which for many was deemed unjust and violating the moral
compact of the revolution and the sacrifices of the Iran–Iraq war.59
Rage against the regime: The elite, anti-clericalism, and nationalism’s revival
The second category of slogans chanted during the Dey Protests was directed
against the entire ruling system of the Islamic Republic, including its clerical and
military components, as well its hardline and moderate political wings. Slogans
directed at the IRGC included “Sepah [the Corps, or the IRGC] are traitors.”
More prominent were anti-religious and anti-clerical sentiments, which casti-
gated the regime’s abuse of religion, such as the chant “You’ve turned Islam into
a tool to oppress the people” [Eslâm-râ peleh kardid, mardom-râ zeleh kardid].
Other slogans expressed political anti-clericalism and the rejection of a theocratic
system, such as “We don’t want to be ruled by clerics” and “Mullahs, go! Leave
the nation alone” [Akhound-hâ hayâ konid, mamlekat-râ rahâ konid].
The slogans also targeted the heads of both the system’s theological and semi-
republican pillars, for instance: “Seyyed Ali [Khamenei], excuse us, [but] it’s time
The Islamic Republic of Iran Four Decades On:
12 The 2017/18 Protests Amid a Triple Crisis[for you] to leave” [Seyyed Ali, bebakhshid, digeh bâyad boland-shin]; “Seyyed
Ali, go! Leave the nation alone” [Seyyed Ali hayâ kon, mamlekat-râ rahâ kon];
“Death to Khamenei” [Marg bar Khamenei]; “Death to the dictator” [Marg bar
dictateur]; and “Death to Rouhani” [Marg bar Rohani]. Chants highlighting the
wealth gap between ordinary people and the privileged elite were also heard,
such as “The nation is begging, the supreme leader acts like God” [Mellat gedâ’i
mikonad, Âqâ khodâ’i mikonad].
Other slogans rejected both the Islamic Republic and the “Islamic Revolution”:
“Islamic Republic, no more, no more” [Jomhouri-e Eslâmi, nah digeh, nah digeh]
and “What a mistake I made, by making the revolution” [Cheh eshtebâhi kardam
keh enqelâb kardam]. In this vein, the famous 1978–79 revolutionary slogan, “in-
dependence, freedom, Islamic Republic” [esteqlâl, âzâdi, Jomhouri-e Eslâmi], was
modified to “independence, freedom, Iranian Republic” [esteqlâl, âzâdi, Jomhou-
ri-e Irâni], thus calling for a secular republic. The latter slogan was also heard
during the Green Movement. In opposition to the Islamic Republic as a politi-
cal system, it was chanted “Referendum, referendum, this is the slogan of the
people” [Référendum, référendum, in hast sho’âr-e mardom].60 This call expressed
the desire to hold an internationally supervised referendum through which Ira-
nians could freely choose their future political system. Political demands were
also voiced, such as “Political prisoners should be released” [Zendâni-e siâsi âzâd
bâyad gardad], a slogan that was also chanted during the Green Movement.
Anti-clerical slogans were also in some cases accompanied by chants in favor
of Iran’s monarchical and nationalist past, such as “Reza Shah, bless your soul”
[Rezâ Shâh, rouh-et shad] and “The King of Kings, bless your soul” [Shâhanshâh,
rouh-et shad], especially in “religious cities” such as Mashhad and Qom—argu-
ably a reflection of the above-discussed clerical class privilege.61 In addition to the
latter factor, these chants ought to be contextualized within a recent revival of
nationalism and secularism in Iran driven by demographic (bulk of Iranians born
after the revolution) and ideological (post-Islamism) changes, which Pejman Ab-
dolmohammadi argues have the potential to reshape Iran’s political landscape.62
Despite efforts by some pro-royalist circles to interpret the pro-Reza Shah slo-
gans chanted during the protests as expressing a wish to revive the last shah’s
monarchy, these slogans were arguably intended to push back against the clergy,
as mentioned previously. Moreover, the image the overwhelming majority of
protesters (who had only experienced the post-revolutionary era) have of the
monarchical ancien régime has largely been created through their parents’ narra-
tives and those offered by the popular London-based Iranian TV station Mano-
to, which is sympathetic to Iran’s royal past. Combined with a sense of Iranian
hyper-nationalism, these narratives can indeed produce a glorification of the
1313monarchical past. However, such pro-Shah expressions primarily indicated pro-
testers’ rejection of the social, cultural, economic, and political conditions under
the Islamic Republic, rather than a clear desire to re-install the monarchy, for the
above-mentioned nationalist revival was accompanied by an increased interest in
democracy and constitutionalism.63
As I wrote during the Dey Protests, a number of key events in 2017 caused popular
frustration and disillusion with the regime in its entirety.64 In May 2017, after a dead-
ly mine explosion in northern Iran, angry miners attacked Rouhani’s armored car
when he visited the site.65 In mid-November, when heavy earthquakes hit the western
Kermanshah province, many Iranians felt that the regime did not sufficiently pro-
vide for their most vital needs—from the social housing built under then-President
Ahmadinejad, which collapsed and buried inhabitants under rubble, to the Rouhani
administration’s hesitancy to provide relief to the 70,000 people left homeless, who
were only provided with temporary housing containers for many months.66 A man
from the affected Kurdish area said that “the government has helped everyone: Bos-
nia-Herzegovina, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq ... but not us,” echoing complaints also made
in other parts of the country.67
Over the summer of 2017, the nepotism of elite reformists became the subject of
national outrage. The starting point was a July 20 interview with the son of lead-
ing reformist politician Mohammad Reza Aref, who credited his “good genes”
for his professional success. Iranians took to social media to call out more cases
of such âqâzâdeh obtaining lucrative jobs through nepotism.68 As I previously
wrote, “On the one hand, this further undermined the tarnished reputation of
the reformists, making clear that they were clearly part of the ruling elite and not
on the side of the people they pretended to represent. On the other, the struc-
turing wall erected after the revolution between regime insiders (khodi), who
enjoyed access to state resources and privileges, and outsiders (qeyr-e khodi),
seemed to be insurmountable for most Iranians.”69 Moreover, corruption cas-
es within the Rouhani administration (including one involving the president’s
brother and close advisor, Hossein Fereidoun) showed many Iranians that this
phenomenon was not limited to Ahmadinejad’s previous administration.70
As a result of these events, and in contrast to the Green Movement, the popular
rage during the Dey Protests encompassed the establishment’s reformist wing. The
protesters viewed both hardline and moderate elite factions as having betrayed their
hopes and aspirations. In line with this, they rejected the idea of having to choose
during presidential elections between a larger, hardline evil, and a lesser, reformist or
moderate one, as indicated by the slogans “Reformist, Principlists: The game is over”
[Eslâhtalab, Osoulgarâ: digeh tamoum-e mâjarâ] and “We neither want Mir [Hossein
Mousavi] nor a [Supreme] Leader, we neither want bad nor worse.”
The Islamic Republic of Iran Four Decades On:
14 The 2017/18 Protests Amid a Triple CrisisLinking Iran’s regional ambitions to its domestic shortcomings
Iranians have increasingly criticized their country’s expansive engagement in the
region over the past few years. For instance, university students have forcefully
questioned the regime’s rationale for its military intervention in Syria on the side
of Bashar Assad, which it justified as a means of fighting against the Islamic State
(ISIS) terrorist group and Wahhabi extremism, as well as protecting holy Shiite
shrines. They have also vociferously accused the regime of being complicit in the
mass killings of Syrians. Some politicians, such as the former popular mayor of
Tehran, Gholamhossein Karbaschi, have also questioned Iran’s heavy use of its
military across the region, leading them to be attacked by the Rouhani adminis-
tration and regime hardliners alike.71
Protesters maintained that, rather than providing for Iranians’ domestic needs,
the Islamic Republic had prioritized imperial ambitions in the region, providing
billions of dollars to Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Syria’s Assad, and Islamist groups in
Gaza. In this context, protesters chanted slogans such as: “Leave Syria alone,
think about us” [Souriyeh-râ rahâ kon, fekr-i beh hâl-e mâ kon]; “Neither Gaza
nor Lebanon, I’ll sacrifice my life for Iran” [Na Ghazeh, na Lobnân, jân-am fadâ-
ye Irân]; and “Both Gaza and Iran: Down with the tyrants.”
A new radicalism: “Be afraid, be afraid!”
By the end of the upheaval, protests also took place outside of prisons where
thousands of young Iranians were arrested and in some cases tortured. While
during the Green Movement the popular slogan “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid,
we’re standing together” [natarsid, natarsid, mâ bâham hastim] was chanted to
heighten protesters’ morale, the radicalization that emerged with the Dey Pro-
tests was visible in this alteration that was heard outside of those jails: “Be afraid,
be afraid, for we’re standing together” [betarsid, betarsid, mâ bâham hastim].
Regime elite reactions
Uniform condemnation from hardliners and reformists alike
In routine fashion, Supreme Leader Khamenei blamed the Islamic Republic’s “en-
emies” for the protests: “In the events of the past few days, the enemies of Iran are
deploying every means at their disposal, including money, arms and political and
intelligence support, to coordinate making troubles for the Islamic establishment.”72
President Rouhani merely acknowledged popular frustration over the state of the
economy, corruption, and lack of transparency, adding that “People are allowed un-
der the constitution to criticize or even protest but […] in a way that at the end they
1515lead to a better situation in the country for the people.”73 However, the president’s
affirmation of protesters’ rights lacked credibility, as his own minister of the interior,
Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, was engaged in the crackdown on protesters and had vili-
fied them for the “spreading of violence, fear, and terror.”74
The reformist and centrist “moderate” wing of the elite was overwhelmingly
skeptical, if not openly hostile to the Dey Protests. Leading reformist figures,
such as former President Mohammad Khatami, condemned the protests, echo-
ing their hardline counterparts’ pejorative labeling of protesters and the narrative
that it was partly sparked by Iran’s foreign enemies.75 Likewise, Khatami’s former
advisor and prominent reformist strategist Saeed Hajjarian likened the protests
to “hooliganism” and “vandalism.”76
According to Mostafa Khoshcheshm, an analyst close to the hardliners and a
former editor-in-chief of the IRGC-affiliated Fars news agency, all elite factions
were unified in their reactions: “This is one of the rare cases when different
camps—from even the Green Movement supporters to the reformists to the
principlists—are standing all together; they are standing behind the government
and the establishment, stating that people are entitled to shout their protests at
economic flaws and faults. But they are all standing against riots.”77 This cross-
factional condemnation also facilitated the Dey Protests’ swift repression.78
Causes and consequences of the reformist elite’s stance against the Dey Protests
The reasons for the hostility of many prominent reformists toward the Dey Pro-
tests were manifold, and included their rejection of revolutionary change and
non-institutional forms of political contestation. According to the conventional
reformist strategy, political change in Iran ought to be sought through polling
stations rather than protests or revolution.79 Reformists view mass mobilizations
as largely problematic because they could provoke more repression from hard-
liners, or drive Iran into civil war, turning it into “another Syria.” As Eskandar
Sadeghi-Boroujerdi aptly explains,
Despite a recognition of the economic and political drivers of the unrest, re-
formists were adamant in their insistence that protestors refrain from violence,
looting, or the damage of public property. While hardly unique to Iran’s reform-
ists there was a pattern of sorts—a decided fear of popular mobilisations which
failed to correspond to pre-determined institutionalised forms of contestation.80
Also, it certainly did not escape the reformists’ attention that the Dey Protests
not only failed to voice support for them (as the Green Movement had), but ac-
tually condemned them. Moreover, the Dey Protests’ social base clearly differed
from their own urban middle class one.
The Islamic Republic of Iran Four Decades On:
16 The 2017/18 Protests Amid a Triple CrisisIn brief, the reformists clearly displayed a preference for the status quo in the
Islamic Republic. For this reason, according to Hamid Dabashi, the Dey Pro-
tests have shown that Iranian reformism has ultimately lost historical legiti-
macy.81 Or, as Sadeghi-Boroujerdi said, in the Dey Protests’ “vocal denuncia-
tions of factionalism and the entirety of the political elite, we might well be
witnessing not only a historic low point but what Gramsci famously termed
an ‘organic crisis’, where ‘the old is dying and the new cannot be born’ in
the two-decade-old articulation of reformism still cleaved to by a significant
portion of the Iranian political class.”82
The reformist leadership’s lack of solidarity with the Dey Protests massively tar-
nished its image as an agent for political change in Iran. However, while the
reformist leadership exhibited an unsympathetic and even hostile stance toward
the protests, other reformists expressed cautious support for people’s right to
peaceful protest, as reflected by a declaration published by 16 reformist intellec-
tuals post-Dey Protests.83 In addition, an intra-reformist schism emerged, with
younger low- and mid-ranking reformist activists criticizing their leadership’s
views on the protests and their fear of street mobilizations.
A wake-up call for the elites
The Dey Protests pushed various officials to contemplate their causes, with
some (such as Masoud Nili) pointing to economic structures and others
(such as Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri) to wide-ranging and systemic cor-
ruption. Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Coun-
cil, pointed to corruption, arguing that once people lost trust in the regime,
the collapse would begin.84 Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani warned that if the
massive challenges were not addressed in a timely manner, even larger ones
would emerge.85 In other words, officials largely focused on the Dey Protests’
economic dimensions, while hardly mentioning the inseparable political
ones. Interestingly, however, publications close to the IRGC have provided
remarkable analyses of the protests’ combination of socio-economic and po-
litical demands, alluding to the fact that those elite circles are well aware of
the underlying grievances and potential threats.86
The Dey Protests’ specificities
In sum, the seriousness of the phase ushered in by the Dey Protests was marked
by a number of partly novel factors: (1) protest slogans exhibited an unprec-
edented level of politicization, targeting all factions of the regime, without
sparing the moderates, in contrast to the Green Movement; (2) an irreversible
1717chasm formed between state and society; (3) the social base of the Dey Protests
was the alienated lower socio-economic strata—conventionally conceived of
as the regime’s social base—in contrast to the Green Movement, whose social
base was largely the urban middle class; (4) the moderate elite forces, including
Rouhani and the reformists, lost legitimacy, marking a deep crisis of factional
rule in the Islamic Republic; and (5) Iran’s security establishment acknowl-
edged that the main threat to national security did not emanate from outside,
but rather from inside.87
Moreover, the Dey Protests shifted the understanding of potential agents for
change, undermining the long-held premise that the poor and marginalized
formed the regime’s support base, while the urban, “enlightened” middle class-
es—who had taken part in the Green Movement—constituted the authentic
opposition to the system.88
Protests since 2017/18
Since the 2017/18 Dey Protests, anti-regime protests have continued in myriad and
innovative ways, but decreased in number.89 According to the BBC’s Persian service,
between May 1, 2017, and May 1, 2018, Iran saw 17 protests and strikes on a daily
basis, which were organized by workers and activists. In the first half of the Iranian
year 1397 (which started on March 21, 2018), there were more than 2,000 protests
over economic complaints and unemployment, or almost 11 per day, according to
a senior official of Iran’s largest charity, the Imam Khomeini Relief Committee.90
According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) da-
tabase, about 4,200 protests took place between January 2018 and October 2019,
overwhelmingly led by workers, at a rate of almost six per day.91
Post-upheaval protests have included: (1) women’s civil disobedience protests
against the compulsory hijab;92 (2) environmental protests against water mis-
management;93 (3) workers’ protests and strikes, such as the labor strikes by
Haft-Tappeh workers due to months of unpaid salaries and by truck drivers
throughout the summer of 2018;94 (4) protests by dervishes against state repres-
sion;95 (5) the late June 2018 Tehran Grand Bazaar protests and strike;96 (6) the
September 2018 general strike in Iranian Kurdistan;97 and (7) others driven by
a combination of socio-economic, political, and environmental grievances, such
as those in Ahvaz and Kazeroun.98 During these demonstrations many of the
Dey Protests’ slogans were re-chanted, in addition even more radical ones, such
as “Our enemy is right at home, they always say it’s America” [doshman-e mâ
haminjâst, hamash migan Âmrikâst].
The Islamic Republic of Iran Four Decades On:
18 The 2017/18 Protests Amid a Triple CrisisThe Islamic Republic’s
Triple Crisis
An acute triple crisis is plaguing the Islamic Republic—socio-economic, politi-
cal, and ecological—and has been driving protests since at least the 2017/18 Dey
Protests. Each one of these elements constitutes a potentially existential threat to
the political system and, in the case of the ecological one, even the country. Thus,
the second part of this paper undertakes an analysis of these underlying drivers.
The socio-economic crisis
The socio-economic situation of Iranians cannot be discussed separately from
the country’s political economy and economic policies. Iran’s economy is shaped
by two important factors: (1) the Islamic Republic’s power structure and (2)
neoliberal economic policies implemented since the 1990s.
Regarding the first factor, the Islamic Republic’s power structure is composed
of institutionalized state–business–military relations. It has been described as a
“monopolistic-capitalist, religious-commercial system” or “a capitalist state with
a paramilitary polity and theocratic rule.”99 It is comprised of the economic em-
pires of the IRGC, the bonyâds (which are run by both regime conservatives and
reformists), and Supreme Leader Khamenei, who in 2013 was believed to con-
trol a financial empire worth $95 billion, now estimated to be much higher.100
The second phenomenon involves “illiberal neo-liberalization,” as Matin has
put it, which Rouhani has implemented through austerity budgets, clientelistic
privatization, deregulation, and the favoring of capital over labor.101
Aside from the vast economic activities connected to state and semi-state en-
tities, there is also a private sector that came into existence during the Hash-
emi Rafsanjani presidency, which accounts for one-fourth to one-third of GDP.
Yet, according to Iran’s Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, the private sec-
tor provides four-fifths of employment opportunities. This shows that the most
capital-intensive sectors remain under state control (above all the energy and
petrochemical industries), while the most labor-intensive ones are relegated to
the private sector.102
1919Iran’s socio-economic malaise is exacerbated by an ideologically grounded politi-
cal economy, which favors regime loyalists, as well as the absence of much-needed
structural reforms. Its economy has endemically suffered from mismanagement,
cronyism, nepotism, corruption, “brain drain,” and the flight of financial capi-
tal.103 In terms of corruption, Iran ranks 138th out of 180 countries, according
to Transparency International’s 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index.104
Iran is now facing a recession, as a result of: (1) falling exports and consumption
on the demand side; (2) a contracting industry sector on the supply side; (3)
high inflation (which quadrupled from 10 percent in May 2018 to 40 percent
in November); and (4) the loss of its currency’s value over the past few years.105
Furthermore, U.S. extraterritorial sanctions were re-imposed over the course of
2018. Although U.S. sanctions have had important negative repercussions for
Iran’s economy (especially by leading to the collapse of its oil exports), their
overall impact on the country’s economic situation has been overrated.106 Lastly,
Iran’s economy suffers from low levels of capital formation and of productivity.
In the absence of reforms, the country is poised to become stuck in a so-called
low economic growth trap, which would only exacerbate the unemployment
crisis, paving the way for new waves of protests.107
Arguably, what could be called Rouhani’s neoliberal-authoritarian model paved
the way for the Dey Protests. His administration’s budgets were consistent-
ly predicated upon two pillars: (1) neoliberal economic policies, which relied
strongly on austerity measures and (2) budgets that allocated significant funds to
security organs. The result of that mix was socio-economic degradation, which
saw income inequality rise, while authoritarian structures were sustained.108
Poverty, inequality, and precarity
Despite conventional thinking, Iran’s socio-economic indicators are similar
to those in countries that were affected by the Arab Spring. Assessments of
the state of poverty in the Islamic Republic remain highly contested. On
one hand, absolute poverty has sharply declined, according to international
poverty indexes. In contrast to the pre-revolutionary era, today most Iranians
enjoy access to basic services and infrastructure. However, one-fifth of Ira-
nians live below the national poverty line (two-thirds of them female), and
almost half of them live near it—thus, a clear majority of Iranians suffer from
socio-economic precarity.109 When it comes to absolute poverty, some schol-
ars argue that the rate is generally low—Salehi-Isfahani claims the rate was
4.7 percent for the country as a whole in 2016/17—while others estimate the
figures to be much higher—Hossein Raghfar said in 2018 that 33 percent
of Iranians, or 26 million individuals, suffered from absolute poverty, and 6
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